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Webinar on Mind, Thinking & Creativity

WAAS and WUC conducted a webinar on March 9, 2016 in preparation for the upcoming course on Mind, Thinking and Creativityat IUC Dubrovnik on April 12-15.

Mind is humanity’s highest developed instrument for seeking knowledge. It is an instrument with remarkable capabilities and characteristic limitations. What we commonly call knowledge consists of word symbols and concepts based on implicit social and psychological constructions and values. As photographs and movies are images of reality rather than reality itself, mind perceives sense impressions, formulates thoughts and utilizes images and symbols to represent a reality it cannot directly grasp. Individuals perceive, interpret and comprehend their experiences as reality at both the personal and societal level. In planning and proposing recipes and blueprints for governance and managing change, decision makers and experts often take little notice of the extent to which prevailing concepts are influenced by the particular way in which individuals, communities, societies and cultures construe what they call reality. Social reality rarely conforms to or even approximates the neat categories, distinctions, differences, oppositions and contradictions by which mind characterizes it in social theory.

The insufficiency in our conceptual knowledge of social reality is itself an expression and result of more fundamental limitations in the ways we understand and utilize the human mind and the mental processes on which that knowledge is based. The course on Mind, Thinking and Creativity will explore the characteristics of mental knowledge and thought processes, types of thinking, the character of rational thought, the mental and social construction of knowledge, deep thinking, creativity and genius.

Our guest speaker of the webinar was William Byers, author of Deep Thinking,The Blind Spot and How Mathematicians Think. Byers is a Canadian mathematician who has made important original contributions to our understanding of how the mind thinks, creativity, the process of formulating new conceptual paradigms, limits to rationality, the intrinsic uncertainty of all knowledge, the relative roles of ambiguity, logic and paradox in thinking, and artificial intelligence.

In Deep Thinking, Byers explains that there is more than one way to think. Most people are familiar with the systematic, rule-based thinking that one finds in a mathematical proof or a computer program. But such thinking does not produce breakthroughs in mathematics and science nor is it the kind of thinking that results in significant learning. Deep thinking is a different and more basic way of using the mind. It results in the discontinuous “aha!” experience, which is the essence of creativity. It is at the heart of every paradigm shift or reframing of a problematic situation.

The identification of deep thinking as the default state of the mind has the potential to reframe our current approach to technological change, education, and the nature of mathematics and science. Deep thinking is the essential ingredient in every significant learning experience, which leads to a new way to think about education. It is also essential to the construction of conceptual systems that are at the heart of mathematics and science, and of the technologies that shape the modern world. Deep thinking can be found whenever one conceptual system morphs into another.

“Deep thinking is the result of ambiguity. An ambiguity causing a distress that results in creativity to relieve us and lifts us to a next level of consciousness. It is the essence of a baby learning to speak as well as the essence of evolution over millions or years. It is Byers' conviction that progress and creativity is the result of conflicting situations, ambiguity, and uncertainty, not only in mathematics, but for science in general and it is even the essence of being, the motor of evolution in general.”

-- Adhemar Bultheel, European Mathematical Society

“Byers says, scientists need to recognize "uncertainty, incompleteness, and ambiguity, the ungraspable, the blind spot, or the limits to reason." These blind spots are embedded in the scientific method, because the world itself is ambiguous and cannot be seen clearly. Scientists ignore this at their peril. Ancient Greek mathematics, for instance, suffered from a refusal to accept the ambiguous concept of the square root of 2.”

--Publishers Weekly

"Is the idea that anything can be determined with absolute certainty an illusion? . . . Byers incorporates many brilliant thinkers and seminal scientific breakthroughs into his discussion, offering the cogent, invigorating argument that only by embracing uncertainty can we truly progress."

--Kirkus Reviews

"The myth of absolute predictability has polluted our society and led to a lack of flexibility and imagination. Byers takes on the difficult challenge of formulating a better worldview, in effect a new kind of philosophy of science and mathematics that emphasizes creativity and wonder. He sees more deeply than others into the profoundly and richly ambiguous nature of mathematical and scientific concepts."

--Gregory J. Chaitin, author ofThinking about Gödel and Turing

"This is an extremely ambitious book. In addition to science and mathematics, Byers brings to bear insights from literature, philosophy, religion, history, anthropology, medicine, and psychology. The Blind Spot breaks new ground, and represents a major step forward in the philosophy of science. The book is also a page-turner, which is rare for this topic."

--Joseph Auslander, professor emeritus, University of Maryland

"Science deals in certainties, right? Wrong, says Montreal-based mathematician William Byers. . . . He contends that this view is wide of the mark and dangerous, influenced by the human need for everything to be 'certain'."

Any simulation, no matter how brilliant in conception, is qualitatively different from what it simulates. 65

Deep thinking is not analytic. It is not only involved in the creation of the conceptual system but also in the student’s re-creation of it. 76

“Deep thinking” is a way to talk in concrete terms about the gap between machine and human intelligence. 77

A paradigm of deep thinking is the conceptual reframing that occurs when a child moves from the world of counting numbers to the world of fractions. 79

Machine intelligence is not human intelligence, machine learning is not human learning. 83

Our culture’s capacity to sustain innovation and people’s ability to adjust successfully to a world in which change is not only continuous but also accelerating, depends on society’s ability to conceptualize the difference between machine and human intelligence. 91

An algorithm cannot generate creativity. In fact the reverse is true—creativity is what produces algorithms. 98

Deep thinking is involved in moving from one conceptual system to another. The two systems are incompatible from one point of view yet, in other, they have a hierarchical relationship, which integrates them with one another. 123

The ability to hold two contradictory ideas in the mind without flinching is the essential element in creative activity. This “Deep learning” is the kind of learning that arises from deep thinking. It is to be found in the learning of concepts and conceptual systems but especially in the development of new conceptual systems. 144

All scientific and mathematical theories are constrained by the fact that we describe the world by means of a conceptual system. 157

Rational thinking consists of a sequence of propositions arranged in a logical order that is organized so that each step follows from the preceding one by means of the rules of logical inference…There are other ways of using the mind, which are neither rational nor sequential. “Deep thinking” is the name that I am giving to a kind of non-sequential thinking. 176 Non-rational thinking would appear to be amorphous and vague precisely because we are used to identifying thought with rationality. 178

Deep thinking includes a discontinuous leap that gets you very excited because it gives you a vision of an entirely new world. 344

The change from one conceptual system to its successor is radical because the new way and the old way of seeing the world are incompatible with one and this incompatibility is the reason why conceptual change is discontinuous—it is very difficult to hold both views at the same time. It is the need to resolve the incompatibility that powers deep thinking whether it comes in the guise of development, conceptual learning, or major breakthroughs in the progress of science. 414

Deep thinking is always generated by something that is problematic. This problem may manifest itself as an ambiguity, an incompatibility, or even a contradiction. 452

Deep thinking always involves an element of discontinuity— either get it or you don’t. It involves an insight, a leap to a new point of view. 459

Certainty, on the other hand, is only to be found within an established conceptual system… Moving from one conceptual system to another inevitably necessitates stepping into the realm of the uncertain. 462

All systems of thought are incomplete, as Gödel taught us, and this incompleteness can be thought of as an inevitable residue of uncertainty. 466

Deep thinking involves reframing, that is, coming to look at a given situation in an entirely new way. 469

The intriguing thing about conceptual systems is that they possess both a subjective and an objective dimension. 531

Concepts have their meaning conferred upon them by the system of which they form a part. It is the conceptual system that is crucial and thus I have made it my point of entry. 534

Most people believe that what they see is independent of the fact that they see it; they imagine that it is possible to separate the content of what they see from the window through which they see it. This is the same as believing that one’s knowledge is distinct from one’s “knowing,” the cognitive mechanisms through which that knowledge is known. This belief informs the requirement that a scientific result must be “objective”—independent of the observer. If the scientific conclusion depends on the operative scientific paradigm—the lens through which it is viewed—then the very nature of “objectivity” must be reconsidered. 553

Knowing and knowledge are intertwined so tightly that they can only be pried apart in an artificial manner and at a cost of distorting the system that is being studied. 559

The word “objective” can be used in two different ways. The first is “not dependent on personal opinion or prejudice,” while the second is “independent of mind.” The system of concepts is objective in the first sense but not the second. 582

The objectivity that we claim for mathematical and scientific results is relative objectivity. 589

Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry are not only different mathematical systems but are also different conceptual systems. 592

Data means nothing on its own and cannot be understood. 605

The painting only makes sense when the observer of the painting, whose eye makes the painting come alive, is considered along with the two-dimensional canvas painting; it is only implied. In an analogous way learning does not only involve some body of objective material but also the point of view that an individual brings to the material. Just as every observer brings their history and entire being to their viewing of the picture so we bring all of our cultural and conceptual baggage to every situation of learning. 612

A scientific experiment is not just something that can be held at arm’s length and examined at a distance. Every situation is not real unless it is viewed. Another way to say this is that the complete description of a scientific experiment (or anything else) must include a point of view, a way of looking at the phenomenon, which is what a conceptual system provides. 621

To change conceptual systems, the old system, the old world, must lose its compelling power to define reality and be replaced by an entirely new way of seeing the world. 649

Actually there are (at least) two distinct modes of “doing” mathematics and science. The first involves working within a fixed paradigm and the second involves replacing one paradigm by another. The dominant mode of thinking in the former situation consists of continuous, analytic thought. 759

There remain intrinsic limitations to our ability to “objective” situation, which is an abstraction that does not really exist. The real world is intimately tied to, and ultimately is inseparable from, the lens through which it is viewed. 766

Conceptual systems by their very nature are subject to change and development. 768

Technology is always attempting to replicate aspects of intelligence and deep thinking. Of course this could be said of any conceptual system. And this attempt is always doomed to fail in an absolute sense even though some of the attempts are extraordinary. 815

Closed systems can never capture the fundamental openness of deep thinking for the simple reason that once it is reified it is constrained. 818

Paradigm change necessarily involves a discontinuous jump. Reality is singular and each paradigm evokes its own reality. 837

A scientist never really gives up the paradigm within which she has been trained. What happens is that a new generation grows up within a new paradigm and the old generation retires or dies off. For the most part the researcher spends her time making continuous computations within an unchanging conceptual system. 839

Geo-centered, helio-centered, or without a physical center represent three profoundly different ways of living in the world. The loss of an external center, which comes about with the dominance of the scientific worldview, may well have contributed to the alienation, anxiety, and general angst that are so common in the modern world. 897

The student is not wrong or stupid; she is living in a different mathematical world. 1024

Discontinuities and incompatibilities are an irreducible part of the world. The world cannot be described by a single, rational conceptual system, scientific or otherwise, because you must deal with the problems that inevitably develop within any system and give rise to new systems. 1036

Actually no system of thought is really concrete; they are all abstract. It is more useful to think about going from one conceptual system to another. 1118

Modern mathematics, pure and applied, still has not reconciled the differences between the discrete and the continuous. 1170

The process of mathematical and scientific discovery consists of an alternation between insight and logical derivation. The latter seemingly has the last word. Thus many people have concluded that formal logic is the only way of using the mind that matters in mathematics whereas, in practice, what matters is getting the idea, the productive way of looking at the problem. 1197

Mathematics is not (merely) logical; its essence is deep thinking! 1199

Deep thinking involves freeing the mind from its constraints—seeing beyond the current paradigm and reframing the situation. 1202

Deep thinking has no single location where it begins and it certainly does not have a definitive end. It is pure process— 1206

Establishing the relationship between deep thinking and formal thought we are addressing the intrinsic limits of computation. 1210

In deep thinking the mind is used in a manner that is fundamentally different from the way it is used in the everyday thought of adults but also from the way the mind is used in the analytic thought of scientific and mathematical theory and discourse. 1213

Conceptual change is the most significant and radical instance of deep thinking. Its nature is completely different than that of deductive reasoning. 1250

People tend to think that a proposition in mathematics is either right or wrong because they see the whole thing happening within a fixed conceptual system. 1257

Continuous thought follows the rules of formal or informal logic. Thus we believe that a question cannot have two contradictory answers, that is, an answer is either right or wrong. 1282

All scientific theories are incomplete and approximate. They may function well at the centre of the domain that they describe but tend to break down at the boundaries. 1325

The new system does not eradicate the old. On the one hand the new and the old are incompatible with one another. On the other the two systems can be integrated. 1336

Obviously deep thinking involves one’s conscious self but it is also evident that there are elements of it that are not conscious. 1370

Jacques Hadamardi in his treatise on creativity in mathematics and explains why insight, when it comes, often seems like it is discovered serendipitously and feels like it comes from sources that are outside of the self. 1371

Deep thinking and creativity are, I would argue, the essence of mind. 1381

Learning, “the way the world changes our mind,” and creativity, the way “our minds … change the world,” involve the same basic mechanism, namely, deep thinking. 1394

Consciousness evolves—both historically and developmentally. However it is important to remember that the earlier and more basic forms of consciousness do not disappear. 1401

Most people can be trained to be creative and this training will necessarily include accessing forms of consciousness that are characteristic of childhood. 1404

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts and its properties cannot be anticipated from the properties of the parts. 1481

There is a tendency for the analytic to deny the existence of the synthetic. 1516

Understanding is the creative core of learning—what real education is all about. “Understanding” is a creative process that is discontinuous. There is no algorithmic way of attaining understanding. Understanding and coming up with an idea are both creative processes that involve both the synthetic and the analytic. 1557

The vital step in the creative process involves holding two contradictory ideas in the mind simultaneously. Thus creativity depends on duality and conflict. 1645

If we attempt to reduce learning or creativity to an exclusively left-hemispheric activity we will inevitably miss its essence. 1736

New conceptual learning can only occur after the individual has escaped from his operative mindset. 1773

Real science is “deep science”; real mathematics is “deep mathematics.” They both involve both hemispheres, both analytic and synthetic thought but the life of the subject—creating and learning—resides in the right hemisphere and in synthetic thought. 1812

Creativity is learning in its most profound sense. 1928

The setting for creative experience is allowing oneself to accept, without resistance, the entire situation complete with its non-logical elements. 2118

Idea is “that which reveals relations within phenomena.” 2144

There is No Formula for Creativity. There can be no technique for creativity because any activity generated by a technique or formula is not creative. 2167

It is impossible to decide to let go. The injunction “let go,” like the injunction “be spontaneous,” is paradoxical in a way that reminds me of the “liar’s paradox”— “this sentence is false.” 2240 If you let go because of a decision to let go then you would not be letting go at all. The opposite of letting go is following some rule or formula, which is what you would be doing if you could decide to let go. 2242

If creativity cannot be produced by formula or technique then it must be a free creation of the mind—truly original with no direct line that connects it to what came before. 2277

The evolution of life and the evolution of the cosmos consist of episodes of marvelous creativity that could not have been predicted a priori. 2279

What is it that gives data significance? What transforms it into knowledge? Can data be understood or, rather, what is the relationship between information and understanding? 2349

Information is not knowledge, much less understanding. 2358

Understanding, for example, is a relationship between the person and the subject. It is neither totally objective nor is it totally subjective. 2362

Human beings are not machines and the mind is not a computer—the computer arose out of a series of acts of creativity and not vice-versa. 2369

Invention of reason is a creative breakthrough on the highest level but maintaining that logical inference is creative is a profound error. 2382

Belief that learning is primarily about the acquisition of facts is fundamentally flawed. 2416

Knowledge must involve patterns or relationships between individual facts. 2425

Machines live in a universe of data; but the existence of knowledge necessitates a human presence. 2438

There is a tendency in the modern world to reduce all knowledge to data and this is done by completely suppressing the “knower.” 2450

Knowledge only comes alive when it is understood. 2468

Many persist in thinking that education involves acquiring objective and timeless knowledge. 2490

I think of the acquisition of data and skills, not as real education but as the mere beginning of real education. Real education involves the acquisition of knowledge and understanding, which both include an important element of creativity. 2581

Education involves replacing one conceptual system by another. This last step is the key, and most difficult, aspect of education. 2597

Learning is not just about acquiring knowledge, skill, concepts, or even conceptual systems. It is also about moving from one way of thinking about a situation to another, more complex, way of thinking. 2598

When we come to see learning as a spectrum we will also see creativity in the same way. When all learning is seen to contain elements of creativity then it cannot help but transform our view of what education should be. 2614

Learning is not an industrial process and the industrial metaphor is a bad one. Learning how to learn, and the joy of learning, comes from accessing the domain of knowing. 2625

The existence of obstacles is an essential feature of education, which is often ignored. 2673

Learning inevitably begins by admitting your own ignorance, you have to “not understand” before you can hope to understand. 2716

Learning is natural and inevitable. There is really no stasis, no time when we are in a state of permanent equilibrium. Either we are growing and learning, or we are in a state of decline and decay. 2828

No one can learn for someone else. You cannot magically impart understanding to another. Learning, as I have repeatedly stressed, is intrinsically difficult. 2864

To appreciate the value of having a human being teaching a class we must look on the teacher as a facilitator of “deep learning.” 2907

I laugh when I hear people placing their hopes for the future of education on educational apps for the smart phone or tablet computer. I, too, find myself captivated by technological innovation but let us not allow the novelty of the latest technological gadget to blind us to what is essential. You can have great teaching without gadgets and poor teaching with the best equipment in the world. In fact technology is often as much a distraction as it is an aid. 3127

Our vital need as a society is for “deep learning” and to get there we need “deep teaching.” 3131

Real mathematics is alive and it is the mind that gives it life! 3591

If transcendence is to be found anywhere it is within change and not by replacing change with a theoretical framework that will never change. In mathematics as in science and in life, evolution will ultimately have the final word. 3642

We tend to think that Ramanujan was so creative despite his lack of formal training but maybe it was precisely that lack of training (and also the particular form of his religious beliefs) that made him such an original mind. 3709

The Blind Spot: Science and the Crisis of Uncertainty

A better way to think about the present situation is that what looks like a series of disparate crises is really one crisis that manifests itself in various ways—one all-encompassing crisis that arises from inner contradictions that are inherent in modern culture. 7

The Blind Spot refers to an intrinsic and inevitable limitation to scientific theories and even to scientific concepts. 81

All of the crises mentioned here can be traced back, in one way or another, to the point of view of the science of certainty. 82

The two approaches to science that I discuss in this book divide up neatly in this regard; the first attempts to deny or eliminate uncertainty, the second takes uncertainty as an inevitable fact of life, as an opportunity, and considers how best to work with it. 84

we must learn to “think outside the box.” A certain ideology of science and technology constitutes the proverbial “box” in this instance, and we must get outside of it if we hope to deal with the present situation. 88

And yet science is a human activity, an activity pursued by human beings. This is an obvious statement but it bears repeating since part of the mythology of science is precisely that it is independent of human beings, independent of mind and intelligence. 98

Most often we think of scientific thinking as rational thinking characterized by clarity and logic. Are these the only characteristics of scientific thinking? Are they even the most important ways in which scientists think? 102

This blind spot arises out of human consciousness itself, and is rooted in the biology of the brain.

Ambiguity is seen to be unexpectedly present in much of mathematics and science. 126

Science is motivated by a desire to unify our experience of the world and to unify ourselves with the world. 136 Einstein talked about his feeling that “behind anything that can be experienced there is something that the mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection.”2 The “blind spot” is my name for those things that are real but which the mind cannot grasp and thus cannot capture through words, symbols, or equations. 152

A drunken man has lost his house keys and is searching for them under a streetlight. A policeman approaches and asks what he is doing. “Looking for my keys,” he says. “I lost them over there.” And he points down the street. “So why are you looking for them here?” “Because the light here is so much better,” the man replies. 159

Our brain provides us with the illusion that there is no visual blind spot, so our rational intelligence—through its insistence on consistency and completeness—hides the blind spot from our consciousness. 178

There exists an intrinsic limitation to what can be known through science. The existence of that which is real but cannot be understood poses a major challenge to our usual way of thinking about the world and to our thinking about the relationship between human beings and the natural world. 202

Some things cannot be put into words because doing so is only an approximation to the real situation. The verbal or symbolic formulation captures some aspects of the situation but is not identical to it. There is a question regarding the relationship between the definition and the thing being defined. 223

To insist on a one-to-one correspondence between words and reality protects us from the self-referential spiral that is inherent in human self-consciousness, the ambiguity that lies at the heart of the human condition. 229

Trying to understand something often means trying to give it a definition, yet (as in the case of infinity or randomness) another definition is always possible. Each definition structures a certain field of mathematical or scientific thought. Certainly one definition may be better than another but even an excellent definition does not capture the informal domain out of which it emerges. It structures the informal situation. 294

“Understanding” demands placing something in a context. 299

Each subject we explore should be thought of more as a “field” (like an energy field in physics) than a fixed and definite object. A field does not have a fixed objective meaning. It is much much larger than that. 311

The entire world of science is grounded in human consciousness and rationality. 318

The existence of the “ungraspable” implies that there are intrinsic limitations to the cultural project of reducing reality to rationality. 319

The ungraspable refers to a quality of intrinsic incompleteness that is inevitably associated with the conceptual. 370

Many people will be surprised by the assertion that some things cannot be understood. 371

That which is real but inexpressible is not something vague or mystical; it is something that is immediate and simple. It is the ground out of which the concept arises. 397

Science derives from a source that is not accessible to science. 401

Sources of creativity are by definition unknown, inevitably outside of the present conceptual universe. 410

The unknown is the matrix out of which creativity is born. 411

Creativity has its origins neither in the natural world nor in the world of concepts—it involves much more than the mere shuffling of well-defined conceptual categories as a computer would do. 413

Concepts are the results of acts of creativity and not the other way around. 415

Science is not identical to reality; science is a description of reality. 416

The first thing that is necessary is to break the mistaken identification of science with reality. 418

It is necessary to differentiate between science and the mythology of science. 420

Just as the brain renders invisible the physiological blind spot and gives the illusion that the visual field is continuous and complete, so the mythology of science has the function of hiding from view the holes in the fields of consciousness and rationality. 422

The “blind spot” I am talking about is an inevitable consequence of our rational consciousness. 425

What is the assumption of rationality, the assumption of logical consistency if not the mind’s way of “filling in” the holes in our rational universe. 429

When we look for this blind spot intellectually, it seems to disappear and so we must infer its existence in an indirect manner. 431

Yet rationality is itself the result of an act of creativity and so cannot be used to explain the origins of the extraordinary creativity of science. 439

The uncertainty of the unknowable is deeply unsettling to the analytic intelligence. 481

I am not saying that there is anything wrong with logic, analytic thinking, or the intellect, but they do have a tendency to take over, to insist on being the sole arbiter of reality. 491

To use words to point beyond words; to use well-formulated sentences to point out that there exist aspects of reality that are not captured by well-formulated sentences is a form of mental judo. 498

If we were talking about music, everyone would recognize the difference between the music itself and a description of the music. So it is with science and the natural world that science describes. 500

It is as though one part of us knows but cannot speak, while the other speaks very well but inevitably misses that unmediated connection with things that is the content of the deepest form of knowing. 517

What is missing from most scientific discussions is the role of the scientist as a subjective participant in the scientific enterprise. 519

Reason is grounded in one modality of human consciousness and thus is inevitably blind to other ways of knowing. 522

The major scientific breakthroughs in the last century that all point in one way or another to limits on what we can know. 533

Modern science contains a new way of looking at reality, and what is distinctive about the new view is the emergence of these limits—limits to reason, to deductive systems, to certainty, and to objectivity. 535

The discovery of uncertainty is like a canary in a coal mine. 541

It is through mathematics that we can best study the strengths and weaknesses of this mode of thinking. 549

Mathematics is the traditional bastion of reason and absolute certainty. 551

Morris Kline, in the introduction to Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty, says, “It is now apparent that the concept of a universally accepted, infallible body of reasoning—the majestic mathematics of the 1800s and the pride of man—is a grand illusion. 552

Uncertainty and doubt concerning the future of mathematics have replaced the certainties and complacency of the past.” 554

Uncertainty has entered mathematics in many different guises. An early shock was the creation of non-Euclidean geometries. For millennia, people had looked to Euclidean geometry as the quintessence of certain knowledge and it was the way that the mind was used in geometry—deductive logical reasoning—that seemingly brought elusive certainty within the grasp of humankind. 557

Not only were the results of Euclidean geometry thought to be certain, they also seemed to reflect the very structure of physical reality. The deductive axiomatic method that Euclid introduced was the method for arriving at certainty both about the results themselves and about the properties of the natural world.

The real numbers settled certain questions of the deepest mathematical and scientific importance, but these very successes opened the door to a whole series of seemingly paradoxical situations that threatened to destabilize mathematics. All of this contributed to a loss of faith in the objective and absolute certainty of mathematics. 667

The gap between certainty and truth had now been revealed for all to see. 687

Certainty is not to be confused with truth. 710

Many explicit mathematical questions can be shown to be undecidable. 721

Incompleteness and the undecidable are different ways in which the blind spot finds its way into science. They indicate that there are limits to what can be achieved through a certain kind of thinking. Such limits are today firmly established as part of the intellectual landscape. However, their implications are still far from having been assimilated into the general culture. 745

The classical ideal of complete, objective, and absolutely certain knowledge has been lost. The ability of reason to “capture” the world has been put in doubt. 781

Many of the great theories of modern science testify to the fact that uncertainty is an irreducible feature of the world. 789

A classical, deterministic science is a science of stasis. It misses the essence of life, namely dynamic change. It would seem that it is precisely the life sciences in which the need for a new perspective is most compelling. 793

Every crisis has within it the seeds of rebirth, and this particular crisis carries the potential for a revolutionary new way to imagine the world, the role of human beings, and the nature of the mind. 804

The loss of certainty can be seen as the end of the world, or—as I have repeatedly said—it can be seen as an opening to a new way of thinking about science. 804

One of the factors that characterize this moment in history is our civilization’s current confrontation with problems of such complexity and urgency that we find ourselves paralyzed. These include economic problems, vast population growth, scarcity of food and clean water, depletion of energy sources coupled with the insatiable desire of people in developing countries like China and India to share in the promised land of middle class life and the consumer economy. The problems are so vast, and the proposed solutions so stopgap, that even thinking about the problem becomes painful and seemingly futile. 807

The present world crisis, for that is what it is, will not be resolved by “business as usual,” by applying techniques and strategies that have brought on the situation we are in.

We must find a way to approach our cultural blind spots, to face uncertainty with courage, to confront our own powerlessness in the face of what I have been calling the ungraspable without becoming paralyzed. 813

Our situation contains elements of the paradoxical—it is the successes of the scientific method that have brought us face to face with its limitations, just as it is the complexity of the global financial community that has brought on the present economic meltdown. 815

Facing the situation authentically will evoke the creative intelligence that we desperately need at the present time. 819

What are the implications for science and society of the existence of a blind spot that cannot be captured by systematic thought? 824

Uncertainty and incompleteness are the price we pay for creativity—in fact, for being alive. 826

These two points of view lead to two different orientations toward the entire scientific enterprise. One I shall call the “science of certainty,” and the other the “science of wonder.” They differ in many ways, but one crucial difference involves their attitude toward the uncertainty and incompleteness. 829

The demand for absolute certainty is more characteristic of a mythology of science, a view that one finds more often in technology than in pure science. It is a distortion of pure science, a distortion that, as we shall see, has the potential to create a lot of damage. 832

“Romanticism as a cultural force is generally regarded as intensely hostile to science, its ideal of subjectivity eternally opposed to that of scientific objectivity. But I do not believe this was always the case, or that the terms are mutually exclusive. The notion of wonder seems to be something that once united them, and can still do so.” 846

Wonder has never been absent from science, but it disappears when we turn science into something mechanical, or use it as a way of achieving total control over nature or society. 848

Einstein’s most enigmatic and delightful statements, “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and science.” 854

A discussion of science should properly be based on the centrality of wonder, mystery, and creativity. 858

The misconception that the “science of certainty” is identical to science has contributed to many of society’s current problems. 863

The science of wonder has room for both certainty and uncertainty. 867

Creativity is connected to, even based upon, illumination. Where does illumination come from? What are its sources? 879

Science has been called the religion of our time. Religion once provided what science provides today—a vast mythological structure that contains an explanation of the cosmos and the particular role of human beings in that cosmos. 900

Science provides the sense that the universe is a coherent, connected, and meaningful entity—a sense of the unity of things. This sense of coherence is powerful and important even if most people believe it is merely a subjective sensation and therefore a derivative feeling of secondary importance. 902

Coherence is important precisely because it has both subjective and objective dimensions; because it is related to and accompanies the acts of creativity. The sense of wonder often accompanies the sudden appearance of a sense of coherence. 905

Coherence results from acts of creativity, but coherence is itself a sense that unifies the natural world with the human mind as it grapples with, and attempts to make sense of, that world. Thus, coherence, and therefore creativity, is something that transcends classical objectivity and subjectivity. 911

The problem here is that the argument is mistakenly about the content of science versus the content of religion. Einstein’s “cosmic religious feeling” is meant to bridge that particular gap—to show that the highest form of religious feeling is to be found in science as well as religion.

“Cosmic religious feeling” is the unifying context from which both science and religion emerge and is intrinsically connected to creativity. 931

Cosmic religious feeling is both an inspiration for, and a result of, creative activity in science. 935

In Einstein’s view, science and religion both arise out of this common ground—the same cosmic religious feeling. 948

Normally in any description of science, we proceed by assuming that the objective theory can stand independently of any “subjective” component—this is considered to be the very defining characteristic of science. 971

Viewing science as a field of creative endeavor will allow us to think of science in a radically new light, 974

There would be no science without human creativity and that creativity should be part and parcel of what we are referring to when be we talk about science. 988

Perhaps Einstein should be taken more seriously when he senses that there is an intelligence that is revealed in the workings of the universe. It is not that human intelligence creates an order in what is essentially a chaotic domain but that some intelligence or “mind” is an intrinsic aspect of reality. What a radical challenge to our usual way of seeing things! The scientist reveals that universal mind to us, but that mind is there independent, in some sense, of the individual. 993

This intelligence appeared to be independent of the individual personality, independent of anything that is personal. What is exciting and so mysterious is that this “mind …in the world” is reflected in the human mind. This larger external intelligence is accessible to human intelligence. This is the true mystery of science. Creativity is not the imposition of arbitrary patterns on the world.

All superscripts denote the text location in the Kindle e-book edition

William ByersProfessor Emeritus in Mathematics and Statistics, Concordia University, Canada

Garry JacobsChief Executive Officer, WAAS

Carlos BlancoProfessor of Philosophy, Pontifical University of Comillas, Spain

Bohdan HawrylyshynPresident, Foundation Vidrodgenia, Geneva

Winston NaganProfessor of Law, University of Florida; Chair of Board, WAAS

Zbigniew BochniarzAffiliated Professor of Econ., University of Washington, USA

1. What is pushing individuals to become deep thinkers, to discover a new conceptual system, and to overcome contradicting and differing issues in encountering them? Some individuals can do, and others cannot. What is an element/factor that enables some individuals to become more creative?

William Byers: First of all creativity is not so much something that you decide to do consciously in order to become rich or famous or get promoted. On the contrary it is something that the individual is compelled to do pushed along by a motivation that the person may not even be conscious of. I would say that being creative is an expression of our deepest nature. So I would turn the question around and ask why it is that not everyone is creative. This may be because most of us are too comfortable with who we are, what we have, and what we believe uncritically to be the case. We live in a bubble within which we are quite at home. Disturbing that comfortable world takes courage because you must be prepared to live with unpleasant tension and cognitive dissonance. It is disorienting and a kind of suffering.

2. You mentioned that a new conceptual system is emerging among the digital natives along with technological innovation. How would you describe this new conceptual system? Are new technologies enabling young people to be more creative?

William Byers: No, I said that each major technological change brings about a new (technological) conceptual system. Does it help young people to be more creative? Remember that I associated creativity with changingCSs. Having a new CS surely means that you look at things in a way that is different than previous generations do but that does not necessarily make you creative. In fact people today tend to be the slaves of their technologies and so may not have the time for the concentrated immersion in a problem that is a prerequisite for creativity.

3. Deep thinking – in contrast to analytical thinking, is it more like an experiential and embodied knowledge? Anthropologists conduct fieldwork to understand culture and human behaviors of the topic of interest from informants’ point of view. In design field, researchers observe and interview people to find insights into a product/service that they are developing. In both instances, researchers are trying to obtain the perspectives of the insiders to gain a deeper understanding of the topic/object of research.

William Byers: DT often is generated by an ambiguous situation in which there are two different points of view (c.f. Koestler on Creativity) that conflict with one another. In the situations you have described there are clearly these two different viewpoints—insiders and researchers— so the problem is not only understanding the other point of view but developing a point of view that includes the culture of the insiders but is expressible in the language and culture of the researcher. To bridge that gap requires a creative response.

4. IT industry is looking into human’s biological and physiological data using sensors to investigate human conditions and their interactions with the environment. All the data will be converted into numbers, and sent to a digital and analytical system. In that sense, these data may not be able to enhance deep thinking and creativity. To make these inventions (Virtual Reality, auto-driving cars, AI, etc. ) more creative, what is necessary in addition to algorithm, a conceptual system based on rationality?

William Byers: I think of the inventions you mention as extensions of our society's present conceptual system. A self-driving car is interesting and new but it is not a very creative idea. You wouldn't say, "Wow! I've never thought of it that way." It's easy to imagine a self-driving car. The problems are technical and complicated but not radical. We know we can do it and will do it sooner or later.

As I said I think that the title AI is a misnomer. I don't see how an AI program can be creative when it is necessarily embedded in an analytic paradigm and creativity, real creativity, requires one to step outside of the analytic mind.

Nevertheless there can be creativity within a CS. Writing a paper in mathematics or science should involve creativity within these Ss. But even here the research must be based on an original idea. Where does that idea come from? Often from finding a new way to look at the situation, i.e. reframing. Getting a new idea does not come from a logical analysis or by crunching data alone. It comes from absorbing yourself in the problem for a long period of time and then stepping back from the problem, going for a walk, or taking a nap. Then the promising idea pops into your head sometimes crystallized by a random event that has no obvious connection to your problem. This is thinking outside the box. You can't force it to happen but it does often happen when the mind is ripe and open.

OVERVIEW

The World Academy of Art and Science is composed of 730 individual Fellows from diverse cultures, nationalities, and intellectual disciplines, chosen for eminence in art, the natural and social sciences, and the humanities. Established in 1960 by distinguished individuals concerned by the impact of the explosive growth of knowledge, its activities seek to address global issues related to the social consequences and policy implications of knowledge. The Academy serves as a forum for reflective scientists, artists, and scholars to discuss the vital problems of humankind independent of political boundaries or limits, whether spiritual or physical -- a forum where these problems can be discussed objectively, scientifically, globally, and free from vested interests or regional attachments, to arrive at solutions that affirm universal human rights and serve the interests of all humanity. WAAS is founded on faith in the power of original and creative ideas -- Real Ideas with effective power -- to change the world. Its motto is "Leadership in thought that leads to action."

The spirit of the Academy can be expressed in the words of Albert Einstein: "The creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind." Its Fellows share the ambition (as the Founders said in their 1960 Manifesto) "to rediscover the language of mutual understanding," surmounting differences in tradition, language, and social structure which, unless fused by creative imagination and continuous effort, dissolve the latent human commonwealth in contention and conflict.

Scientific discovery and technological innovation keep developing instruments of unparalleled power for fulfillment or destruction. We humans, more and more, are taking into our own hands the future evolution of our bodies, our minds, the civilizations we create, and the very planet we inhabit. So it is imperative that we guide what we do by what we know, and guide what we know by what we value. The aim of the Academy's founders was to function as "an informal WORLD UNIVERSITY at the highest scientific and ethical level, in which deep human understanding and the fullest sense of responsibility will meet."

The World Academy is incorporated in the State of California and is recognized by the US Internal Revenue Service as a tax exempt private foundation under section 501(c)(3).

MISSION

The World Academy of Art and Science is an association of committed individuals drawn from diverse cultures, nationalities, occupations and intellectual pursuits spanning the arts, humanities and sciences, conscious of the profound social consequences and policy implications of knowledge, and united by a common aspiration to address the urgent challenges and emerging opportunities confronting humanity today. Our mission is to promote cross-disciplinary dialogue generative of original ideas and integrated perspectives that comprehend the root causes and effective remedies for our common problems, while furthering those currents of thought and social movement that affirm the value of human dignity and equitable development. The Academy dedicates itself to the pursuit of creative, catalytic ideas that can provide to present and future generations enlightened leadership in thought that leads to effective action.

HISTORY

The idea of founding an international association for exploring major concerns of humanity in a nongovernmental context grew out of many conversations that took place among leading scientists and intellectuals in the years following World War II. Prominent among this group were people such as Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer who had played a part in the development of the atomic bomb and were deeply concerned about how it and other scientific advances might be used – or misused.

This informal project took a major step forward in 1956, when a meeting – The First International Conference on Science and Human Welfare – was held in Washington, D. C. The organizers were two American scientists: Richard Montgomery Field of Princeton, who had worked for many years as chairman of an international committee on the social values of science; and John A. Fleming, former President of the International Council of Scientific Unions. At the end of the conference, participants agreed to take steps toward the formation of a World Academy, and elected an International Preparatory Committee for that purpose. Its members were: (from France) Pierre Chouard, George Laclavére and G. Le Lionnaise; (from the United Kingdom) Ritchie Calder, H. Munro Fox and Joseph Needham; and (from the United States) Robert Oppenheimer.

The Academy was formally founded (and its first officers elected) in 1960. They were: as President, Lord John Boyd Orr of Scotland; as Vice Presidents, Hermann Joseph Muller of the United States and Hugo Ostvald of Sweden; and, as Secretary General, Hugo Boyko of Israel.

Advisors to the Board

PARTNERS

HOW TO DONATE TO THE ACADEMY

The World Academy is incorporated in the State of California and Fellows elected from 86 different countries. WAAS is recognized by the US Internal Revenue Service as a tax exempt private foundation under section 501(c)(3).

CADMUS JOURNAL

Cadmus is a journal for fresh thinking and new perspectives that integrate knowledge from all fields of science, art and humanities to address real-life issues, inform policy and decision-making, and enhance our collective response to the challenges and opportunities facing the world today.

ERUDITIO E-JOURNAL

Eruditio is the electronic journal of the World Academy of Art & Science. The vision of the Journal complements and enhances the World Academy's focus on global perspectives in the generation of knowledge from all fields of legitimate inquiry.

The Journal also mirrors the World Academy's specific focus and mandate which is to consider the social consequences and policy implications of knowledge in the broadest sense. It is a multidisciplinary forum focused on the social consequences and policy implications of all forms of knowledge on a global basis.

PAPERS BY CATEGORY

BOOKS

The Security & Sustainability Guide

A 250-page “Interim Draft” PDF of The S&S Guide, a project of the World Academy of Art & Science, will be available for limited distribution free of charge to WAAS Fellows in June 2016. It reflects the critical fact that sustainability and security are both essential and can only be achieved in concert. The Guide is incomplete, but the compilers believe that, even in its current state, many WAAS Fellows will nd it useful for illuminating many of the most serious problems facing humanity under the broad, overlapping categories of “Security” (weapons proliferation, terrorism, cyber-attacks, economic and food insecurity, human rights, peacemaking, crime and corruption, inadequate infrastructure, etc.) and “Sustainability” (climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, energy, agriculture, population growth, cities, oceans, forests, vulnerability to disasters, green economics and nance, etc.)

A Post-Graduate Certificate Course in Human-Centered Economics will be conducted by the World Academy of Art & Science, the World University Consortium, The Mother's Service Society, Person-Centered Approach Institute, Dag Hammarskjöld University College of International Relations and Diplomacy and Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, Croatia from Feb 1-Feb 3,2017 at Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, Croatia.

The multidimensional challenges confronting humanity today are human-made and can be changed by a change in thought and action. Contemporary economic thought is built on a mind-frame that originated prior to the Industrial Revolution when scarcity of goods in a world of abundant resources was the primary concern, economic growth was considered synonymous with human welfare, and impact of humanity on the environment was completely ignored. Without challenging obvious flaws in existing theory, it will be not be possible to significantly alter current policies and practices.

The overall aim of the course is to (a) demonstrate why mainstream neo-classical economic theory is inappropriate for dealing with the global challenges of the c.21st, and (b) explore alternative approaches for achieving ecologically sustainable, human-centered development and welfare for all.

This course will present the findings of a five year research program of the World Academy of Art & Science and the on-going work of the New Economic Theory working group. It will harness the best available ideas and practices on human-centred, sustainable economy to create informative, authoritative and compelling educational and communication tools with the power to challenge and alter university level education in Economics, public policy, business decisions, media coverage and general public opinion regarding how the world economy should and can work for the betterment of all humanity.

A Post-Graduate Certificate Course in Social Power, Empowerment & Social Evolution will be conducted by the World Academy of Art & Science, the World University Consortium, The Mother's Service Society, Person-Centered Approach Institute, Dag Hammarskjöld University College of International Relations and Diplomacy and Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, Croatia from Oct 31-Nov 4, 2016 at Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Humanity lives in a time of unprecedented capacity for accomplishment in every field of social life. Never before have we possessed power of this magnitude for good or for evil. Never before has power been so widely distributed within society. Democracy, law, human rights, science, technology, education and many other forms of social organization have generated immense power. Society governs the possession and exercise of this power through formal structures and institutions, such as law and human rights, as well as through both legitimate and extra-legal informal mechanisms including status, wealth, popularity, political influence and corruption. The distribution of power in its various forms powerfully impacts on the functioning of the economy, political system, educational, scientific, religious and and other social institutions, and on the overall productivity, strength, integrity, harmony and welfare of society. This transdisciplinary course will explore the sources, expressions, determinants and consequences of the creation, distribution and exercise of social power in its various expressions in politics, economy, society and culture and its consequences for the evolution of society as a whole.

Mind is humanity’s highest developed instrument for seeking knowledge. It is an instrument with remarkable capabilities and characteristic limitations. It is ironic that we invest so little time in education and scientific endeavor trying to understand the nature of mental knowledge and the character of the mental processes by which we arrive at it. The objective of this course is to arrive at an understanding of the inherent limits to rationality and mental ways of knowing, as well as the extraordinary creative and intuitive processes by which mind transcends those limitations and tends toward genius.

Thinking is the activity by which mind associates, organizes, coordinates and integrates information, thoughts and ideas. Creative thinking is the process by which mind extends the boundaries of existing thought and knowledge to connect, reconcile and unify previously unconnected or contradictory perspectives. This course will explore the characteristics of mental knowledge and thought processes, types of thinking, the character of rational thought, the mental and social construction of knowledge, deep thinking, creativity and genius. Rather than focus on abstract philosophical concepts, it will apply this knowledge to understand both the sources of humanity’s prolific mental creativity, the characteristic problems it confronts due to irresolvable conflicts and contradictions between mental perspectives, and their resolution in different fields of natural and social science, public policy, collective and individual behavior.

A Post-Graduate Certificate Course in Future Education was conducted by the World Academy of Art & Science, the World University Consortium, The Mother's Service Society, Person-Centered Approach Institute, Dag Hammarskjöld University College of International Relations and Diplomacy and Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, Croatia from September 21-23, 2015 at Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Education is our best hope for a better future. Emergence of a new paradigm in education can radically abridge the time required for humanity to address critical issues related to economy, governance, ecology and life-style. Education is the best known instrument for ensuring universal human rights, promoting democracy, enhancing productivity and protecting the environment.There is urgent need to evolve a new paradigm in education appropriate to the needs of the 21st century. Closing the gap between social needs and educational capabilities is essential for addressing pressing challenges confronting humanity today. A review of education today makes evident that there is enormous scope for improving and developing the educational system. Whatever its current limitations in terms of inadequate coverage, quality and content, the means and potential exist for dramatically enhancing humanity’s individual and collective performance in virtually all spheres of our social existence by realistic, achievable improvements in education. We need a new paradigm in education capable of more fully and effectively developing the latent capacities of our youth.

A Post-Graduate Certificate Course in Essence of Effective Leadership was conducted by the World Academy of Art & Science, the World University Consortium, The Mother's Service Society, Person-Centered Approach Institute, Dag Hammarskjöld University College of International Relations and Diplomacy and Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, Croatia from March 31 to April 3, 2015 at Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, Croatia.

This course explored the characteristics common to leaders in business, politics, civil society, science, arts, professions and education and examined methods by which these characteristics can be consciously developed by individuals. The presentations consist of theory, practical strategies, and a wide range of examples drawn from biography, history, management, and literature from movies illustrating the principles under discussion. Apart from the presentations, our faculty interacted with participants to bring home the theoretical significance and practical relevance of the material.

The Individual is the catalyst of all social progress, the source of creativity, innovation, new ideas and new initiatives. The individual is the genetic source of human diversity. The entrepreneur, inventor, social reformer, revolutionary leader, original thinker and creative artist are a few of individuality's expressions. Yet how little we understand about the characteristics of true individuality, the ways in which it expresses, the means for developing it, and the means for realizing real individuality in one’s own life.

History demonstrates that individuals have the power to change the world. This course explored the relationship between personality and accomplishment. It examined the role of Individuality and Values in personal achievement, growth of personality and social progress drawing on evidence from Management Science, History, Psychology and Literature. It explored the relationship between creative individuals and society searching for insights into the principles and process that govern successful human initiatives and their consequences in various fields of life.

The course was intended for both students and practitioners in all fields interested in advancing theoretical understanding and practical approaches to promote the development of entrepreneurship, individuality, creativity, original thinking and other forms of social innovation. It explored the role of the individual in development of society, elucidated the characteristics of true individuals, the source of their amazing power for accomplishment and the process by which they act as catalysts of social innovation. While the presentation was academic, the objective was to impart original insights and practical knowledge for personal growth and individuation.

Today humanity is confronted by a plethora of serious challenges – political, economic, legal, social, cultural, psychological and ecological. These challenges are complex, interrelated, and global in reach. They are a reflection of the inadequacy of current institutions and policies and at a deeper level the inadequacy of current knowledge. They defy comprehension and resolution based on the prevailing principles of social science. The specialized knowledge developed by separate disciplines is inadequate to deal with the increasingly complex interdependencies of the real world. Knowledge needs to evolve to keep pace with the evolution of society.

The evolution of a complex, highly integrated global society necessitates the development of a more comprehensive and integrated science of society. The division into various specialized fields has been a useful mental strategy for the development of the social sciences, leading to significant advances in all fields – knowledge which needs to be preserved and enhanced by future developments. Yet it is increasingly evident that a more comprehensive and integrated approach is now required. As society evolves, its different functions develop greater complexity. At the same time they become more closely and complexly interlinked and interdependent on one another. Economy today is highly dependent on the political system and laws governing the distribution and enforcement of power in society, legal concepts regarding ownership of property and human rights, public institutions responsible for the creation and management of money, rules for commerce between nations, public policies influencing income and wealth distribution, processes that determine collective decision-making, public investment in education and training, and social expectations regarding economy and the future, etc. A recent announcement by the White House of an ‘intention’ to examine measures to discourage shifting of US firms to tax havens overseas resulted in a 10% fall in market value for several large firms.

Strategic Planning Committee Program Framework

Being a world academy composed of members drawn from the arts, social and physical sciences, humanities, business, public administration and civil society poses fundamental questions. How can WAAS distinguish itself from other national and regional academies? Is there really a common meeting point between art and science? Is there a unique contribution that WAAS can make to the world’s knowledge?

At the New Delhi General Assembly, Fellows explored facets of a new program framework developed by the Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) which seeks to answer these questions in the affirmative. Rather than distinguish itself by specializing on a particular set of disciplines, issues or geographic area, the framework is an attempt to formulate a comprehensive approach and integrated perspective of knowledge inclusive of all disciplinary perspectives and applicable to social problems and opporunities in all fields.

The core of the framework is a human-centered conception of what constitutes reliable knowing, a question posed to the SPC by Ruben Nelson. In his presentation to the GA, Garry Jacobs explained how this conception applies to WAAS’s projects on new economic theory, individuality and limits to rationality. Pushpa Bhargava pointed out that a human centered perspective naturally incorporates ecology, since the survival and full development of humanity depends on its capacity to evolve in harmony with the environment.

New Paradigm Program

Scope: The world confronts multiple crises, each of which resists current efforts at resolution and appears intractable. The environmental crisis of climate change occupied the center stage in the mid-2000s. Fears of nuclear weapons proliferation, which had subsided into complacency in the years following the end of the Cold War, suddenly surfaced with renewed intensity when Korea tested nuclear weapons and long range missiles and news surfaced of Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program in 2007.

Then the subprime mortgage crisis exploded in late 2008, spreading havoc through financial markets across the world. It was followed quickly by a sudden and substantial slowing of economic growth in OECD countries, rising levels of unemployment and most recently a crisis of excessive government debt.

In spite of the enormous attention being given to each of these issues by specialists nationally and internationally, progress on all fronts appears to be nearly at a standstill or at least far too slow to meet pressing human concerns. The times we live in are a Wild West of globalization and the unbridled, unregulated expansion of international activities threatens to destabilize and undermine the remarkable progress of the previous five decades.

This project is predicated on the assumption that each of these problems defies solution because they all represent problems that transcend the sovereign powers of the nation-state. None of them can be fully and satisfactorily addressed by nation-states acting individually. All are symptoms of the evolution of world society to a stage where concerted and coordinated global action is required to meet the collective needs of humanity for peace, security, financial stability, economic welfare and sustainable development. This project has been conceived to address the underlying and interrelated issues that all these challenges pose to global governance.

World University Consortium

The mission of World University Consortium is to evolve and promote development of accessible, affordable, quality higher education worldwide based on a human-centered approach that shifts the emphasis from specialized expertise to contextualized knowledge within a trans-disciplinary conceptual framework reflecting the complexity and integration of the real world, from teaching mastery of a field of knowledge to learning that enhances the capacity of students to think and discover knowledge for themselves, from theoretical mastery to acquisition of knowledge, skills and values relevant to each individual’s personal development and career – an educational system better suited to develop the full potentials of social personality and individuality for productive engagement, social welfare and psychological well-being. The objectives are:

Identify global best practices and develop effective global models and strategies to improve accessibility, affordability, quality, innovation and relevance in higher education appropriate to the needs of the 21st century.

Develop innovative, open learning systems and more effective models that extend the reach of quality higher education to people of all age groups globally.

Explore new models of online and hybrid delivery systems designed to facilitate learning through teacher-student and student-student interaction.

Enhance the learning process through research, development and application of advanced instruments for measurement and evaluation of educational processes.

NEW ECONOMIC THEORY

A multidisciplinary group from the World Academy of Art & Science and the Club of Rome are leading a quest for a new human-centered theory of economics that reflects recent changes resulting from the emergence of a service-based economy, globalization, rising social aspirations and changing values, and is integrated with political, social, ecological, technological, and cultural factors from which it is inseparable.

PROGRAM ON GLOBAL EMPLOYMENT CHALLENGE

Access to employment is the most essential requirement for providing economic security to the world’s burgeoning population.

This interdisciplinary dialogue explores theoretical and practical aspects of the global employment challenge, including its demographic, economic, legal, political, psychological dimensions as well as linkages with the international financial crisis, social stability, and terrorism.

EVOLUTION OF INDIVIDUALITY

Individuality is the crown of human evolution and the catalyst for social progress, yet there are very different conceptions of what constitutes true individuality, the relationship between the individual and society, and whether humanity is inevitably evolving toward higher levels of individuality.

This project will explore the essential nature of individuality, the social and cultural factors that foster it, its role in social development, its myriad expressions in the original thinker, creative artist, political leader, entrepreneur, inventor and social innovator, and the means available to society to foster it.

GLOBAL RULE OF LAW

The evolution of international law and human rights represent crucial threads in the progressive development of global rule of law.

This project will explore the relationship between the social, political and legal dimensions of global rule of law in an effort to frame the boundaries of a wider approach to the evolution of global governance. Emphasis will be place to re-examining the concept of national sovereignty and the common rights of humanity in an increasingly globalized world.

NEW SCIENCES

In 2013 WAAS launched a project to explore important developments in recently emerging fields of science, with e-conferences on the Science of Networks and the Science of Complexity. The project involves an application of concepts and tools from the new sciences relevant to address the global challenges confronting humanity today and to the evolution of a transdisciplinary science of society.

PROGRAM ON ABOLITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

The devastating consequences of nuclear war and the potential destructive applications of science and technology were paramount concerns among Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Robert Oppenheimer, Joseph Rotblat and others which led to the founding of the World Academy in 1960.

Nuclear disarmament is a sine qua non for effectively addressing other issues of global important – terrorism, financial stability, unemployment, poverty, climate change, democratization of the UN and other aspects of global governance. In recent years, the Academy has conducted numerous conferences, seminars and workshops and collaborating with other organizations in an effort to promote concrete steps toward immediate and total global nuclear disarmament.

TRANS-DISCIPLINARY DIALOGUE ON THE LIMITS TO RATIONALITY

Rationality is an essential instrument in humanity’s quest for knowledge, yet the practical pursuit of knowledge often ignores or violates fundamental principles of rational inquiry or overlooks the inherent limitations in the use of rationality as an instrument of knowledge.

This project will explore the philosophy and practice of rationality as it is applied in various fields of knowledge to identify common deviations and limitations and propose ways to compensate for the limits to rationality.

The Security & Sustainability Guide

A 250-page “Interim Draft” PDF of The S&S Guide, a project of the World Academy of Art & Science, will be available for limited distribution free of charge to WAAS Fellows in June 2016. It reflects the critical fact that sustainability and security are both essential and can only be achieved in concert. The Guide is incomplete, but the compilers believe that, even in its current state, many WAAS Fellows will nd it useful for illuminating many of the most serious problems facing humanity under the broad, overlapping categories of “Security” (weapons proliferation, terrorism, cyber-attacks, economic and food insecurity, human rights, peacemaking, crime and corruption, inadequate infrastructure, etc.) and “Sustainability” (climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, energy, agriculture, population growth, cities, oceans, forests, vulnerability to disasters, green economics and nance, etc.)